


Folly

by Antosha



Series: The F Words [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Angry Ginny Weasley, Angst with a Happy Ending, April Fools' Day, Auror Training, Butler Kreacher, Community: catchmysnitch, Community: hpgw_otp, Crisis, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fortune Cookies, Grief/Mourning, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday Fred :sniff:, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Luna Lovegood Being Luna Lovegood, Marriage Proposal, Neville Longbottom Being Neville Longbottom, Non-Explicit Sex, Not-oblivious Arthur Weasley, Past Luna Lovegood/Dean Thomas, Percy Weasley cracks a joke, Player Neville Longbottom, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Post-War, Quidditch Player Ginny Weasley, Regret, Shoelace, Shrieking Shack, Survivor Guilt, Table Sex, Teen Romance, The Burrow (Harry Potter), Three-Door Farce, Uptight Hermione Granger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24424870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antosha/pseuds/Antosha
Summary: "There is a crisis looming, be ready for it." (About two months after "Forever")
Relationships: Angelina Johnson/George Weasley, Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Rolf Scamander
Series: The F Words [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761559
Kudos: 25





	1. Act I

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a response to the hpgw_otp Fortune Cookie challenge; the prompt was "There is a crisis looming, be ready for it."
> 
> It is also a response to a catchmysnitch monthly challenge. The prompt was **shoelace.**
> 
> Warnings: Folly, of one kind and another.

Harry stumbled back into the Shack, limbs trembling, but relieved. He’d lasted another term without dying, and without Talionis or Robards booting him from the program. And they had got Easter holiday week, in spite of Robards’s obscenity-larded grumbling. Talionis had given them a sort of ceremonial tongue-lashing by way of celebrating the day and told them all he was sick of their pasty faces, that it was just as well he’d be spared the displeasure of having to look at them for a week, and they’d better be ready to work _hard_ for a change once their holiday was done. Harry’d never been so happy to be insulted.

Party tonight at the Burrow.

Week with Ginny, without having to sneak back and forth… quite as far.

Flying. Helping her get ready for the Harpies tryouts.

Talking to the Weasleys.

That thought dropped a heavy weight in Harry’s stomach, even as it set his fingers tingling.

Leaving his kit by the front door—he’d be taking it soon enough—he wandered into the kitchen. As he had hoped and prayed, Kreacher greated him there, a chilled glass full of butterbeer on a tiny silver tray. “Thanks, Kreacher. Robards was off his nut today. You’re a life-saver.”

“Master is too kind.” Kreacher waited, tray and eyebrows raised, while Harry quaffed off the first half of the drink. When Harry lowered the glass, he was still standing, expectant.

“Yeah, Kreacher?” Harry asked; he had grown used to the house elf’s passive intrusions. “What’s up?”

“Master has a visitor.” The thought that this statement brought to Harry’s mind— _Ginny!_ —evidently made itself clear on his face, as Kreacher continued, “A _wizard_ visitor. I have put him in Master’s study.”

“Thanks, Kreacher.” Couldn’t be Ron; Kreacher wouldn’t have called Ron a visitor, since Ron spent most nights at the Shack—the ones when he hadn’t snuck up to the castle to spend the night in the Head Girl’s quarters, or kipped down in George’s flat after helping out at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. The elf would have said _Master’s friend_ or, more recently, _Mistress’s brother._

After polishing off the rest of the butterbeer in a single pull, Harry deposited the glass on the tray, wiped his mouth obediently with the napkin that Kreacher pulled out of the air, watched the elf make his customary disappearance back to Grimmauld Place, and made his way across the front hall to the room that Kreacher insisted—rather more optimistically than accurately, Harry thought—on calling the Study, which was furnished with a few empty bookshelves, a bare table, two chairs, and one Neville Longbottom.

“Hey, Neville!” Harry extended his hand and was surprised that his friend’s grip, which had grown enthusiastic if not bone-crushing over the past year, was soft, almost timid. “What brings you here? Susan still threatening to skin you alive?”

After the debacle at Professor Slughorn’s at St. Valentine’s, where Neville had inadvertently found himself escorting both Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott, Neville had been very quick to make his own preference between the two best friends—Hannah—clear. Though Susan had accepted the choice graciously, she had made a point of not telling Neville this; she’d been shooting venomous glances at her friend’s boyfriend from the new Auror table in the Great Hall. When the other cadet from the DA, Terry Boot, had asked her why, she’d given them a hard grin. _Don’t want him to forget never to mess with a Hufflepuff._

“No, no,” Neville said, but his eyes seemed focused on Harry’s belt buckle. “Susan’s told me I’ll live, but…” Neville’s eyes flicked up, and Harry caught a sudden glimpse of the determination that had made Neville one of the leaders of Dumbledore’s Army the previous year, and had, coincidentally, made him quite popular with the girls ever since. “It’s made me think, Harry.”

“Think?” Harry tried to guess where Neville was going with this, but couldn’t. Collapsing into one of the chairs, he shrugged at Neville, encouraging him to continue.

Neville sat opposite, eyes still locked on Harry’s. It was a full ten seconds, however, before he took Harry’s cue. “It’s about Ginny.”

Ginny. Tonight. The Weasleys. “Ginny?”

Neville nodded.

“What about Ginny?”

Sitting straight as a broomstick, Neville started to speak, but then paused, his expression frozen between that newly familiar air of grim resolve and the terrified look he had worn so often in years past, especially in Snape’s presence.

“Neville?” Harry prompted. “What about Ginny?”

“Kissed her,” Neville said in a kind of strangled whisper.

Harry understood the words, but they made no sense. He sat there, blinking at his friend. “Kissed—?”

“Ginny,” said Neville, nodding minutely. “Twice. Last year.” His eyes widened. “She didn’t, you know, kiss _me_ , mind, I just want to point that out, but yeah, Harry, I kissed her, on the lips and all, and I feel really rotten, I wanted to say something, but it never seemed like the right time—”

Harry held up his hands and the torrent stopped. Neville’s face was flushed and his eyes bright; burnished red crescents appeared on his cheeks. He sat, lips pursed, still very straight, but blessedly silent.

They’d _kissed_? What the hell did that mean? And why hadn’t Ginny ever mentioned anything? Probably because it wasn’t worth mentioning. Or maybe… “Neville,” Harry said, holding back the urgency he was feeling with his tongue as if he were tamping down the urge to vomit, “when?”

The flood began again. “Last winter. After Luna was taken on the train back, it was awful, you know, everyone was so terrified, but Ginny, she… Well, she and I decided that the DA needed to continue, that it was all the more important, with _The Quibbler_ silenced, we needed to keep the fight going, you know?”

Harry nodded numbly but Neville had already moved on. “Spent a lot of time together, planning, you know? And you were gone, and Hannah’s a Muggleborn, so she wasn’t here, obviously, and Susan was, but she and Anthony….” Neville paused for a moment, either because Harry’s expression was beginning to make him anxious, or because he was surprised by the volume of prattle he was pouring forth.

Harry sat and breathed.

“Well, anyway,” Neville continued, eying Harry nervously, “lot of time together, since, basically, we were the leaders, but Snape and the Carrows were watching us like hawks, so we couldn’t get out much—not until we figured out how to keep the Room of Requirement open to the three common rooms, anyway—wouldn’t half have given an arm for your Cloak and that map she said you had—and she and, yeah, well…”

Harry un-ground his teeth and gave Neville what was meant to be an encouraging nod.

Neville gulped audibly. “Yeah. Well. She’s, you know… Amazing. And…. And…. And smells so nice, like freesia, only not so cloying, and we were in the common room late one night, we’d just pulled off a raid on Mr. Potatohead’s classroom—that’s Amycus—and she’d been brilliant as usual, stunned a couple of Slytherin Prefects before any of the rest of us even knew they were there, and we sent the others up to bed and talked the raid through, a debriefing, sort of, and she was sitting there in front of the fire, her face all glowy the way it gets, you know?”

“I know.”

“Bloody hell.” Neville took another deep breath, not holding it this time. “She was right there, and I didn’t even think about it, I just sort of leaned forward and _kissed_ … And she didn’t back, I swear, it was me, she was totally gobsmacked, we sat there after for like five minutes and she didn’t say a word—hadn’t seen her that quiet since she first came to Hogwarts and then only when you…. And I wanted to die, but I didn’t… I just… And finally she just sort of started talking to me, looking into the fire. About you. And Hannah. And Susan. And Dean. And Luna, even, how hard it was, not knowing where she was, Ginny said she would have loved to talk to her just then… How worried she was, and how we were, you know, friends and all, and that that was the most important thing, coming through together.” Neville sighed in relief, having placed the load squarely on Harry’s shoulders.

“Thanks, Neville.” Not the whole load, however. “And the second time? You said…”

“Yeah,” said Neville. He was looking down at the floor now, but his gaze was far away. “Same, basically. Few weeks later, just before she didn’t come back from Easter … She… One of the Ravenclaws in her year, Siobhan, a girl who’d been really awful to Luna, actually, got caught by Alecto—Mrs. Potatohead—putting _Support Potter_ and _Lovegood Lives_ on the wall right opposite the Muggle Studies room, and that cow was cursing Siobhan something horrible. We all thought she might kill Siobhan, actually. And Ginny—we couldn’t intervene any more, because they’d figured out that having the students curse each other wasn’t a very effective punishment, so it was the Carrows who’d have done it, and they’d have bloody well killed Ginny for sure, they’d come close before…” Neville shuddered, and Harry felt a spear of cold pass through him, realizing that as much as he and Ginny had talked, there were things beyond a pair of kisses that she hadn’t told him about the previous year.

“Anyway,” continued Neville, “Ginny’s right behind the old cow, casts the slickest _Confundus_ you’ve ever seen. One moment Carrow is cursing that girl something awful, the next, she’s blinking at all of us, asking what we’re doing blocking up the hallways. That corridor emptied in about two seconds flat, and if Hermione hadn’t told me a thousand times that you couldn’t Apparate inside of Hogwarts, I’d have said it’d have had to been by magic.” Neville shook his head. “So I walked back with Ginny, and she went through this tapestry, a shortcut up—”

Harry willed his bruised hands to relax. “I know it.”

Now Neville nodded. “Yeah. So I followed her, and she…” Neville’s hands, green-stained and calloused, clenched together between his knees. “She was… Crying.”

Harry blinked. “Crying?”

Neville nodded. “Hadn’t seen her cry like that, ever. I mean, we all cried at the headmaster’s funeral, but… Sitting on the ground. Just… Crying.” He looked up, then down again. “Then. Um. Then. Kissed her again.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Dunno why. Just…”

The front door to the Shrieking Shack burst open, and Hermione’s voice rang through the house. “ _Harry? HARRY?_ ”

In spite of himself—in spite of wanting to hear the rest of what Neville had to say—Harry stood and called out, “In the study, Hermione!” He’d got too well attuned to that panicked tone over the past eight years not to respond immediately.

Neville too stood, eyes narrowed, face suddenly regaining its hard edges.

Hermione ran into the room, her hair wild, her eyes wide, her hands wringing tightly before her. “Oh, Harry—”

Chest pounding, jaw tight, Harry asked, “ _Is it Ginny?_ ”

Hermione froze for a moment and frowned. “Ginny? No. No!”

One nightmare gave way to the next. “ _Where’s Ron?_ ”

Now Hermione simply looked uncomfortable. “Ron? He’s fine. Fine. He… He just had to talk to the Head Auror.”

After the brutal dismissal they’d all just received from Talionis, Harry was shocked that Ron would willingly seek him out. “You’re kidding!”

“No,” she moaned, wringing her hands twice as hard now. “He… Ron will tell you all about it later.”

Harry stared at her, shifting his head as if trying to get a clearer view.

“What is it, Hermione?” asked Neville, voice low and urgent, his earlier nervousness evaporated.

“Yes!” Hermione gasped, nodding as if he had just asked a particularly brilliant question. “It’s Luna!”

“ _Luna?_ ” said Harry and Neville in unison; Harry guessed from the tone that Neville was just as bewildered as he was. Harry reached out and stilled Hermione’s wildly wringing hands. “Was she taken again?”

“ _No!_ ” Hermione gasped. “No, no, she’s still… She hasn’t left yet, she hasn’t been…” Her face contorted. “She… I think… I think she’s lost her mind.”

Harry backed up, trying and failing to keep a dubious expression from his face.

Apparently, Neville didn’t even try. He simply laughed. “Hermione, on good days—”

“Luna is highly eccentric,” Hermione said, her face suddenly very still. “But she always behaves according to her own kind of logic. She… I’m worried about her. She’s acting oddly—even for her.”

“Is this about that letter this morning?” Neville asked. Harry vaguely remembered a Ministry owl depositing a Muggle-style envelope on the plate next to Ginny’s; he’d been focused entirely on watching the spectacle of his girlfriend eating her oatmeal—very, very slowly…

“Yes!” Hermione cried. “It was Dean, he sent her a letter breaking it off.”

Harry looked at her, waiting for more. Luna had talked to Harry for months about her relationship with Dean being strained. Hermione looked at him, eyebrows raised as if she’d made her point.

“Hermione,” muttered Neville, apparently as dubious as Harry, “you heard her. She told us all it was a relief, and how nice it was to have that settled. She looked totally fine—well, as far as Luna ever looks fine.”

“That’s the point!” Hermione said. “She looked totally unconcerned. Blythe as ever, but we all know she cared for him. And _then_ , after Ancient Runes, she went on about what a nice day it was even though it was pouring this morning, but then she started to babble on about snow and ice, and then at lunch she was talking to Ginny all about Snorkacks and polar bears, and I was starting to be nervous—after all, she hasn’t mentioned Crumple-horned Snorkacks in months…”

“Hermione,” asked Harry, “was it Crumple-horned Snorkacks she mentioned, or Great-horned?”

“What _DIFFERENCE_ does it make, Harry? She came down just now carrying _skis_ , for heaven’s sake! _SKIS_. In _APRIL_! You must see, she’s clearly decompensating!” Tears were beginning to brighten her eyelashes. “Her mental state has always been precarious, and after being trapped in the Malfoys’ cellar for six months, it’s amazing that she’s been as resilient as she has, but…” Hermione swiped the back of her thumb across her eyes to clear them. What she saw clearly didn’t please her. “And you two can smirk all you want—Ron was the same. How can you stand there…? _Don’t you care for her at all_?”

Neville spoke up, which relieved Harry enormously. “We love her, Hermione, come on. But this is _Luna_ we’re talking about. Don’t you think you’re overdoing it a bit? I mean, there’s probably some perfectly logical… Well, fairly logical explanation.”

Hermione let out an exasperated growl and wound her arms together more tightly than Harry had seen her do since Ron’s return the previous year. He stepped forward, trying to think of a way to calm his best friend, when the front door banged open, letting in a blast of damp spring air, and the voice Harry had been longing to hear all day called out, “Hullo! Loverboy! Your mistress is here!”

“In here!” Harry called back. Though his head and heart still felt overburdened by his friends’ revelations and his body ached from the punishment doled out by his teachers, Harry couldn’t help but grin to see her sprint into the room, flaming hair and black robes flying behind her. She let go of her trunk, which floated in mid-air, and leapt into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and her lips around his in a manner that drove anything else quite out of his mind for the moment.

Once they’d snogged away for a bit, Ginny mumbled against his lips, “Hey, Neville. Hey, Hermione.”

“Hey, Ginny,” Neville wheezed as if he’d been hit in the stomach.

“ _Mistress_ , Ginny?” sniffed Hermione.

“Oh, yeah,” Ginny answered, and Harry could feel her lips grinning against his own.

Harry backed his face away from hers and stared into her brown eyes. “Only temporarily.”

Ginny squawked in mock indignation, gave him a gentle bite on the ear and then lowered herself.

“I mean,” he said, feeling the blood in his body try to flow in two totally different directions, “legally, you brat. You’ll always be the mistress of my heart, and all that, and I want—”

She kissed him silent once again, less emphatically this time, but no less effectively. When they parted, she was grinning, and Harry knew that he must look as if he’d had a Cheering and a Confundus Charm placed on him simultaneously. Ginny turned to Hermione, who was standing next to Neville, her arms still crossed. Both were staring at their shoes. “It’s because Kreacher started calling me Mistress, that’s all. The batty old elf never called me anything nicer, that’s for sure.”

“Ah,” Hermione said.

“So, you joining us for George’s birthday, Neville?” Ginny asked. “We’d love to have you there.”

Neville blushed and stared at Harry. “Erm, no, no, thanks, I’d love to but I’m going to meet Hannah once she gets off her shift. I’m, um, bringing her for dinner to Gran’s.”

“That’s wonderful!” Ginny bounded over to Neville and wrapped him in a hug that made Harry’s heart lurch; he couldn’t think why until he saw the panicked expression on Neville’s face and remembered what Neville had wanted to tell Harry earlier. Ginny kissed Neville on the cheek; he turned as red a Tentacula flowers. “Hannah’s wonderful, your Gran will love her! And she’s a lucky girl, Neville, don’t forget that.” She gave his cheek a gentle buss.

“Erm, yeah,” said Neville, his voice sounding quite choked. Harry somehow couldn’t break eye contact.

“And you, Hermione? You ready to go?” Ginny continued, clearly unaware of the discomfort she’d sown in her wake. “Where’s my lazy-arse brother?”

“Ah,” said Hermione, biting her lip, “he… He and I will join you at the Burrow. He had to talk to the Head Auror.”

“To old Dragonbreath?” said Ginny, bemusement warping her smile. “Why on earth—?”

“Just some details Ron wanted to discuss,” Hermione said, her face once again set stiffly. “Now, Ginny, perhaps you can explain to these two _boys_ why Luna’s behavior is so worrisome?”

“Luna?” Ginny said, eyebrows arching.

Hermione let out a gasp. “Surely you’ve noticed how… _extreme_ her behavior has been all day—since Dean’s letter arrived. Having your first real boyfriend reject you—by letter no less—it’s no surprise that she’s taken it hard, but I’m terrified that she—”

Ginny shook her head as if to clear it. “Taken it _hard_? She’s fine, Hermione!”

“Fine? _Fine_!” Hermione said. “She’s running around talking about Snorkacks and polar bears, attacking everyone with skis. For heaven’s sake, you are her _best friend,_ aren’t you worried about her _at all_?”

Ginny blinked at Hermione. “Come on, Hermione—”

“Ginny!” snapped Hermione, her face looking positively thunderous. “You’re all just like Ron, all of you, you don’t care at all about another person’s suffering!” Spit sprayed from her mouth as she leaned forward, poking a rigid finger toward each of them.

“Hermione—” started Neville, backing away with his hands held up.

“ _LUNA IS LOSING HER MIND!_ ” howled Hermione, tears flowing, her face twisted in a manner that made Harry wonder about his friend’s own sanity.

Once again blast of April wind passed through the room and announced the opening of the front door. A misty voice called out, “Do you think so? Oh, that would be a shame, since I have such lovely plans for this week.”

Luna sounded so much like herself, and her response seemed, in fact, so rational that Harry felt whatever anxiety Hermione had managed to instill fade. It came rushing back, however, as soon as Luna entered the room.

Luna was dressed in fur from head to foot—what animal could have provided the fur, Harry could not even begin to guess, since it was mostly a shade of purple that Harry had only ever seen on Tonks’s head interspersed with small stripes of green. Over one shoulder she was carrying, as Hermione had said, an enormous pair of skis, and in the opposite hand she held a large canvas duffle. Her wild hair tumbled out from under her fur cap, and it was the most normal thing about her appearance, since her face seemed to have been covered with some sort of yellowish salve, and over each eye she seemed to be wearing some sort of seashell. Harry stood, mouth open but unable to speak. Judging by the silence, Ginny, Neville and Hermione had been struck just as dumb.

“Oh, how nice,” Luna sighed, “here you all are.”

“Luna?” whispered Ginny, though it seemed clear to Harry that the apparition before them was their unusual friend.

“Has he come yet?” Luna asked, her smile showing brilliantly against the tallow-like unguent on her skin.

“He?” Hermione croaked. “Oh, Luna, you know Dean—”

The figure in fur cocked her head and seemed about to speak when she was interrupted by the characteristic splutter and flare of the Floo connection in the kitchen opening. “Hello? Hello?” came a reedy voice.

“Oh!” said Luna, turning quickly so that Ginny and Harry had to duck to avoid being hit by her skis. “Hello!” She ran back to the door much more agilely than Harry would have expected her to be able to.

Harry looked around at his friends. They were all shaking their heads. With a laugh, Harry took Ginny’s hand and followed Luna across the hall; he could hear Hermione and Neville trailing behind.

When they reached the kitchen, they discovered Luna speaking to a tall figure in an almost identical outfit. Harry found himself wondering if it weren’t some elaborate April Fool’s joke.

The taller figure piped, “So wonderful that you’ll be able to join us, Miss Lovegood!”

“Join you?” asked Hermione, her voice low and dubious.

Two heads clad in purple and green fur hats turned towards them. “I’m joining the expedition for a week,” Luna squeaked, bouncing on the soles of her feet.

“That’s wonderful, Luna!” said Ginny.

“Hello, Mr. Potter!” said Rolf Scamander—for that was who this new arrival had to be. “Luna here told me that this was the most convenient Floo connection to the school—I hope you don’t mind!”

“No, not at all!”

“Expedition?” asked Hermione.

“Oh, yes,” said Luna, still bouncing. “Mr. Scamander and his father invited me earlier, you see, but I’d been planning to spend the holiday in Hammersmith. However, when I received that letter this morning, I knew that I could go after all! I’m joining the expedition in Svaalbard for the next week.”

Hermione’s face was slack; she seemed to have lost even her skepticism. “Scamander?”

Harry grinned. “Hermione Granger, let me introduce Rolf Scamander. He and his father are researching a new edition of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them._ ”

Hermione’s eyes grew to saucer-like, Luna-like enormity.

“Indeed!” crowed Rolf. “And as luck would have it we’ve just come across a nesting ground for Great-horned Snorkacks.” Hermione’s jaw dropped, but Rolf continued. “Miss Lovegood, your timing is excellent, and I’m overjoyed that you were able to equip yourself so well on such short notice!”

Beneath the goop on her cheeks, it looked as if Luna might be blushing. “I had prepared myself. Just in case.”

“How fortunate!” said Rolf, clapping two fur-mittened hands together. “Well, we should be off. We’ve got to Floo to Scapa, then Hexenhavn, then Longyearbyen, then we Apparate—”

“Mr. Scamander?” interrupted Luna, who never interrupted anyone.

“Yes?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend at the moment.”

“Oh,” answered Rolf, standing suddenly much straighter. “How nice.”

“Hmmm,” agreed Luna.

Cocking his head and peering at her through the shell-like objects that Harry assumed were some sort of goggles, Rolf Scamander trilled a long series of warbling notes.

In response, Luna turned away from him, her skin clearly pinkening beneath her sunscreen, then cast her gaze back over her shoulder; she responded with three throaty hoots that made her sound like a rather excited mourning dove.

“Bildicoot mating ritual,” whispered Ginny.

“Ah,” responded Harry.

“Goodbye, everyone!” gushed a grinning Luna, placing a mittened hand in one of Rolf’s. “See you all in a week!” And with a flash of green, the mad pair were gone.

“Wow,” said Neville.

“Yeah,” agreed Harry.

Harry looked down at Ginny, who was smiling, but whose eyes were moist. When she saw Harry looking at her, she shrugged. “Happy for her.”

Harry pulled her closer and nodded into her hair.

“Well,” said Neville, eyes averted, “I’m off. Got to get down to the station before the train leaves.” He waved and strode toward the door.

“You could Floo from here!” called Harry, but the closing door announced Neville’s departure.

“I should be getting back up to the Castle as well,” Hermione said quietly. “Ron and I will see you at the Burrow.” Hands folded crisply before her, she too left.

“Well,” said Ginny, a smile brightening her whole face for what felt like the first time in weeks, “ _that_ was fun!”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, lost in contemplation of her face. _Her face all glowy the way it gets_ , Neville had said, and Harry had known just what he’d meant—was seeing it before him.

Neville kissing Ginny. Ginny kissing…?

No.

A pair of lips softened Harry’s. “Hi,” Ginny said.

“Hi.”

She nipped at his lower lip. “You’re all gloomy.”

“Not really,” he said. “Just, you know, thinking.”

“’Bout what?”

“If I could answer that question simply, I wouldn’t have to think.” He placed his hands on her ribs, where he could feel her breathing, could feel her heart beating.

“You sound like Luna,” she teased, threading her arms around his neck.

“But not as warmly dressed,” he said, which caused her to snort. “You’re in a good mood,” he added. It was true: between NEWTs and the tryouts for the Harpies next weekend, Ginny had been very subdued for the previous month, but now she looked very much herself.

“I’m _done_ thinking,” she murmured, pressing herself against him in ways that left them both much less interested in talking for some time.


	2. Act II

When Harry finally found his body, mouth and mind no longer otherwise occupied, he and Ginny were lying on the kitchen table side by side, staring up at the ceiling, which was, he realized for the first time, decorated with the flitting figures of bas-relief griffons. “Mistress finds Master very agreeable,” she said, voice low and breathy.

“Master agrees,” panted Harry, which made her chuckle. Harry turned toward her and kissed the corner of her jaw. An image of her family standing white-faced around the Burrow’s kitchen table flashed through his mind. “Maybe we should have everyone over _here_ for the party.”

Instead of laughing, as he expected, Ginny sat up. All of the exposed bits of her turned pink. He could only see the side of one cheek. “Harry?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Are you sorry we did this so soon?”

“What?” asked Harry, sitting up; her face was still turned away from him. “On the table?”

“No,” she answered, finally looking at him again, the corners of her eyes and mouth turned down. She pressed her chest, still largely bare, against his naked arm. “ _This_.”

“Oh.” A storm of thoughts and feelings exploded within his own chest—not a single monster, now, but a whole stampede of them—and he wondered again at girls’, at _Ginny’s_ ability to observe and discuss this roiling pack of invisible _things_ as if they were real and concrete. “I… dunno. Are you? Sorry?”

“I don’t know.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “I love being so close to you. And I love how you make me feel. But sometimes it feels like…” He felt her arms tighten around his waist. “When Ron and I were little, we found where Mum hid the Christmas presents—George and Fred had been trying for years, but Ron and I were the ones who found the hiding spot, behind the chimney in the attic. And it was really thrilling, knowing they were there, and we’d sit and look at them and try not to open them, but then we’d get all excited, and sneak peeks and that was wonderful—like this, you know? Wonderful but naughty, and that sort of added to the thrill. But then Christmas would come, and it would be kind of… disappointing. And we’d feel guilty, both of us, but we couldn’t say anything.”

Staring at the kitchen, Harry pulled Ginny closer. “I never had any presents to sneak peeks at.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Ginny gasped, her back arching against the inside of his elbow. “Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry.”

He looked down into her raised face—into the wide whites of her bright eyes—and smiled, trying to let her know that he’d only been trying to lighten the mood.

Her eyes immediately narrowed to crescent slits. “Prat,” she said, though her lips flared up slightly at the corners.

“Ginny,” he said, before she could start yelling at him, “I guess I get what you’re saying, but… Should we not be doing this?”

She huffed, sending a strand of her hair that had work its way free from her schoolgirl plaits floating upward. “Mum certainly talked about _women’s virtue_ and all that often enough—I heard her drilling that rot into every one of my brothers’ heads: _Don’t treat nice girls like scarlet women._ What am I, then?” Her pupils darted left and right, as if she were searching out some answer to her question in the kitchen floor.

“Come on, Ginny. You’re not a…” He leaned down, but still she did not look at him. “Come on!”

“Are you so sure?”

He blinked, and sat up, then reached out and lifted her chin so that she was looking at him. “The only _scarlet women_ my aunt ever talked about were the film stars she’d read about in the Sunday papers, and you’re definitely nothing like any of them, Ginny, please.” She started to turn away again, but he held her face fast. “Please. If this didn’t mean anything, what we’re doing, I guess I could think that we were being, I don’t know, _bad_ or _unvirtuous_ or whatever, but don’t you feel like it does mean something? Doesn’t it feel right to you?”

“Yeah,” she answered, but she didn’t seem to be at all cheered by the thought.

“Bloody hell,” Harry grunted. “Here you were in such a good mood. I’m sorry—”

“It’s not your fault, Harry, this is just… It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, that’s all, I don’t know why it’s suddenly come up. And I’m still pleased about the decision I made, I just…” She shrugged.

“Decision?”

She shrugged again.

Harry couldn’t help but think about his own plans for the evening, and the thought that perhaps Ginny had changed some of his assumptions made his tongue go dry. “Was it… about me? The decision?”

Ginny’s eyebrows arched. “No. Not really, no.” She reached up and put her hand over his. “No, Harry. I just… I’ll tell you later, okay?”

“Okay.” Now he felt himself teetering on a narrow, between two pits of dread. “Ginny?”

“Yeah?”

“Would it help?” he asked. “Would it help if you knew for certain that this, you know, _meant_ something?”

“What? I guess.” She was looking at him closely now, her face as still as he could ever remember seeing it. “Harry—?”

He stood, pulling up his trousers and rummaging through the pockets, finding what he was looking for. As Ginny continued to stare, he knelt to one knee on the floor, his heart pounding in his throat. “Ginny...”

She stared.

“I...” Harry seemed to have lost the power of speech. It was as if the question that he wanted to ask were to large to pass through his mouth. Verbal constipation... He lifted up the small box in his hand, but noticed that it was closed. He raised his other hand to open it—surely she would understand when she saw the ring—but his clumsy finger knocked the box bouncing to the floor. Now flaming panic warred with leaden dread; he scrambled to pick up the box again, aware that he not only couldn’t talk, but that sweat was oozing from every pore in his body.

Words. He knew that there were words.

Ginny stared. Her eyes were wide. Her skin was so white that the freckles looked as if they’d been picked out in pen.

He reached up to open the box again, but his fingers were slick with sweat, and he once again dropped it.

He started to reach down for it again, but Ginny slid from the table to kneel before him—she on both knees, he on one. “Harry...”

“W...?”

“Your shoelace is untied.”

They blinked at each other, and then both bent down, their foreheads colliding. Both of them fell to the floor.

Once again they lay on their backs, staring up; this time it was at the underside of the kitchen table, which Dean seemed to have decorated with Snorkacks. They seemed to be engaged in some sort of mating behavior. “I guess that’s why he and Luna took so long to refinish this table,” Ginny mumbled.

Harry looked over at her. She had a small bump just below her hairline. Her eyes caught his.

They both began to laugh. Uproariously. Breathlessly. Unceasingly.

Some long time later, the laughter had subsided to giggles, and they began to kiss, to caress, to intermingle. They made love again, and it was slow and quiet and quite, quite lovely.

Eventually, they were still again at last. Neither looked up. Their gazes were locked, and Harry was uncertain what he saw, but he couldn’t have looked away for all the world. “Ginny,” he said, at last, “will—?”

Smiling, she placed her fingers over his lips. “Shhh. I want you to ask, Harry. But I want it to be because you want to, not because you’re feeling guilty or sad or embarrassed.”

“Oh.”

She pulled him close. “Harry. You don’t needn’t worry about the answer, I promise.”

“Okay.”

Moving slowly, not wanting to lose the feeling, not wanting to lose the moment—not wanting to bump their heads on the underside of the table—they slid apart and dressed again.

Wordlessly, they gathered up their baggage and shuffled to the Floo. Harry picked up his Firebolt, and then peered over at Ginny, whose trunk floated behind her once again. “Ginny?” he asked. “Where’s your broom? We have to get you ready for the try-outs.”

“Oh,” she said, looking down for a moment before raising her gaze to his once more. “That was the decision I was talking about, Harry.”

“Decision?” He couldn’t think what she meant, but given the tumult of the last few hours, perhaps that wasn’t so very surprising.

“Yes,” she said, smiling—though the smile looked far from her usual bright grin. “I’ve decided not to try out for the Harpies after all.”

And with that, she tossed the Floo Powder into the hearth, called out, “The Burrow!” and stepped through, leaving Harry shocked and—once again—speechless.


	3. Act III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to aberforths_rug for the beta, for realz....

Harry stumbled through the Floo after Ginny, dropping his own broom and the beat-up rucksack that had served him for luggage since he, Ron and Hermione were on the run. “Ginny, what the hell do you mean, you’re not going to—?”

She gave him a warning flick of the chin that said clearly, _Look around._

With a blink, Harry took in his surroundings. Ron and Hermione were staring owlishly at Harry and Ginny from the Burrow’s battered oak kitchen table. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were standing by the sink. Mrs. Weasley was trying to smile at the new arrivals, but she was wringing her hands, which was never a good sign. Mr. Weasley had his hands on her shoulders; it looked very much asif he were trying to keep her from launching herself through the ceiling.“Hello, Ginny, Harry, dear. How lovely that you’ve come. Now we’re almost all here and we can have a lovely birthday party for... for George.”

“We wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” said Harry.

“‘Course we’re here, Mum,” Ginny murmured, giving her mother a kiss on the cheek. Mrs. Weasley’s fingers never stopped working at each other.

Concerned, Harry took a step forward. “Uh, Mrs. Weasley—?”

Arthur Weasley gave a small, firm shake of the head, and Harry felt his mouth close. “Molly, dear,” Mr. Weasley said quietly into his wife’s ear,“there’s plenty for us to do before Lee and Angelina and the others get here—Ginny, will your little friend Luna be joining us?”

“No,” answered Ginny and Harry. Hermione gave a sort of strangled laugh. Harry felt obligated to elaborate. “She’s gone hunting… er… Snorkacks. _Great_ -horned Snorkacks.”

“Ah, what a shame,” said Mr. Weasley, though he looked more relieved than disappointed. “So, children, perhaps you could go up and get the birthday boy... ready. For the party.”

Before Ron could ask whatever it was that he was about to ask, Ginny answered, “Sure, Dad. C’mon, Harry.”

He followed her dutifully, trying not to take too much notice as Mrs. Weasley turned to her husband and began to sniffle. As he reached the first landing, he heard Hermione pushing Ron up the stairs behind him. He took Ginny’s hand. “Ginny—”

“What the hell was _that_ all about?” hissed Ron as he reached the landing.

“Honestly, Ron,” Hermione tutted.

Ginny answered her brother, her eyes on Harry’s, her hand still in his. “Fred’s... death. The idea of going up to the twins’ room must be too much for her. Even at Christmas she never went in there without crying.”

“Really?” asked Ron. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I ever forget, but... It’s been almost a year.”

Hermione tapped her boyfriend on the arm. “But this is the first birthday since. Anniversaries and firsts are hard. Isn’t that so, Harry?”

“Uh, yeah. I suppose.” He tried to think of anything like it—the first Christmas after Sirius’ death, perhaps. But all that Harry could remember thinking of at the time was the glow of Ginny’s face as she decorated the tree or picked maggots out of his hair. “I guess.”

Ginny scanned his face. “Harry...”

“What do you mean, you’re not trying out for the Harpies?” Harry blurted.

She stared at his chest. “Harry...”

“Harry?” asked Hermione.

Ron’s jaw dropped. “You’re not...?”

Ginny’s eyes flashed up. “No. I’m not.”

Harry squeezed her hand. “But...?”

She pulled her hand free and looked back at his chest. “I can’t. Ever since the last match. Everyone thinks I’m a sure thing, but I know I’m not, and I can’t go back to school and tell everyone I tried out but didn’t get it. I can’t.”

“Ginny?” Harry reached for Ginny’shands again, but she held them at her shoulders. “Come on. That’s just—”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t say it, Harry.”

“But—?”

Hermione intervened. “Harry, it is, after all, Ginny’s decision.”

He tried to grasp Ginny’s hands again, but she threw them behind her back. Harry grabbed her shoulders instead. “You can’t just... not try. That’s not like you at all!”

Ginny’s nostrils thinned and her jaw jutted out. Harry knew that if he let her grab her wand from her pocket, he’d be at the receiving end of a world-class Bat-bogey Hex, something he’d managed to avoid to this point and very much hoped never to experience. “It _is_ your choice, Ginny, honest, but I don’t understand—”

“Ta,” growled Ginny.

“Uh, Harry, Ginny, just, you know...” Ron said, and Harry turned to him, blinking. When did Ron ever actually act the peacemaker? “Just don’t, you know, be hasty.”

“Yes, o wise one,” snapped Ginny.

“It’s just...” Ron seemed to be trying to hide behind Hermione’s hair. “It’s just, I know, you know, that there are times, you know...”

“Ron,” Harry asked, “What the bloody hell are you on about?”

Ron stood to his full height; Hermione took his hand and gazed up at him. “Just, sometimes, it’s a good idea when you realize you’ve made the wrong choice.”

Harry could feel Ginny turning, felt her at his shoulder, knew that she was looking at her brother with an expression of bewilderment as complete as his own. “Thanks, Ron.”

Hermione squeezed Ron’s hand. “Tell them, Ron.”

Ron looked down at his feet, took a deep breath and looked right at Harry. “Talked to Talionis today. I quit.”

Harry looked at Ron.

“It’s just… I know we said we’d do it together, and I know it’s really important—the Ministry needs Aurors, and the wizarding world needs Aurors. I just… It’s you, Harry. It’s what you want to do, what you’re good at. The bloody best. It’s like Susan—she’s got it in her blood. Or Terry, he’s nails in all the MLE statutes and regs and stuff, he loves it all. But me? I’m only there because…” Ron stopped, blinked miserably at Harry, and then looked down, pleading, at Hermione.

Squeezing his hand again and smiling, she stepped in. “Ron’s realized that he wasn’t very happy these past few months. He’s been miserable these last few months.”

“I know,” Harry sighed.

Ron snorted. “Wasn’t just about being _happy_ , ‘cause, come on, since when has being a miserable git stopped me doing anything? It’s that I’m terrible at it—at most of the work of actually being an Auror. You know?”

“Ron—” Harry began.

“No, come on—I’m absolute pants at it. Pursuit? Statutes? Stealth? Hell, old Dragonbreath told me I made Tonks look like a bloody Lethifold. Okay, the actual combat spells—the things you taught us fifth year—those I was good at. And strategy. Not that the next Voldemort is going to sit down and settle things over a game of chess. But the rest? Pants.”

Ginny asked, “And you’re not… disappointed?” When her brother shook his head, she turned to glare at Harry.

For the first time, Ron looked Harry straight in the eye. “Well, I loved being with you, Harry, and Susan—even if she did seem to enjoy kicking my arse way too much—and Boot and Emery and the rest. And Hermione’s going to be at the Ministry next year. But…”

“I understand,” Harry said, and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“I…” Ron began to look down, but stood his ground. “I didn’t want you to think that I was running away again. Like, you know, last year.”

“Daft git.” Harry pulled Ron into a hug. “Told you last year: you didn’t run away. Well, okay, you stomped off in a fit of Horcrux-inspired pique. And you spent the better part of the next two months trying to run _back_.” He patted Ron’s back brusquely, leaned back and looked up. “Of course I understand!”

A grin like daybreak broke out on Ron’s face, and Harry suddenly realized just how long it had been since he had seen Ron truly smile. “Wicked! Thanks.”

Harry started to step back but Hermione, who was quickly boiling over from sniffling to blubbering, pulled him back in to a three-way hug. Between his friends, Harry saw Ginny staring at them, her eyes and nostrils slits. “Come on,” he said, not certain why she was angry, but recognizing the signs all too clearly and desperate to escape an explosion,“let’s fetch the birthday boy.”

The four of them clomped up the stairs to the second landing. Ron, who was clearly feeling giddy, hammered on the door whose sign still read, _Fred and George’s Room: Enter at Your Own Risk_. “Oi! Old man! Come on down to the party before the prune juice is all gone!”

They stood there, awaiting whatever rejoinder George might send back, but were met with nothing but silence—a sound foreign to the Burrow.

“George?” called Harry. “Your mum wants you downstairs.…”

More silence.

Hermione, who had already had one full-blown panic attack earlier that day over Luna’s odd behavior, looked as if she were well on the way to another: chewing her lip, wringing her hands, her eyes growing round and wide as Luna’s herself.

“George?” Ginny said. Whatever signs of anger she had been displaying moments before were replaced by signs of worry. Putting her hand carefully on the knob—touching anything anywhere near the twins’ room was always an iffy proposition—she cracked open the door and led the group in.

The room, which had been essentially a storeroom when Harry had last seen it, was neat as a pin and devoid of any sign that Fred and George had lived there for seventeen years. The walls were beige and bare. The two desks were utterly uncluttered. The bedspreads, which Harry remembered as being two violently clashing shades of purple, were a matching pale yellow.

On what had been Fred’s bed, the surviving member of the Terrible Weasley Twins lay on his side, curled into a tight ball. His knees were pulled so tightly in front of his face that Harry could only see George’s broad forehead; the long nose, the mischievous eyes—even the missing ear was hidden from view.

Harry started to rush to George, the first responder training he’d been getting over the past few months clicking in. Ron was right beside him and just a step behind. Ginny, however, managed to reach her brother faster than any of them. She touched George’s neck with those thin, clever fingers—taking a pulse, Harry realized—and then let out a breath and held her hand up, as if to say, _Give us some room._ She knelt. “It’s awful,” she said to George. No _Don’t worry_ or _It’ll be okay_ —just _it’s awful._ She wrapped her arms around George, hugging him gently.

An odd, vibrating sound seemed to bubble up from George’s middle. At first, Harry hoped that it was a laugh—that George was about to shout _April Fool!_ and tease them all for falling for his trick. But quickly Harry realized that the sound was neither more nor less than a year’s suppressed sobbing. George twisted in his sister’s arms, throwing one brawny arm around her waist, and began to bawl.

Ginny—tiny Ginny—held him and rocked him, there in the middle of what had been Fred’s bed. After a while, Ron sat at the end of the bed, and Hermione sat tentatively beside him, both facing Ginny and George. Uncertain, wishing that there was anything that he could do to help, Harry sat by the pillows and watched as George slowly cried himself out.

Ginny, too, was weeping. Ron was looking away, but Hermione kept dabbing, first at her own eyes, and then at his.

Harry didn’t feel like drying the tears coursing down his cheeks.

When at last he had subsided, and Ginny looked as if she were about to let him go, George pulled her hard against him. “D’you know?” he moaned. “Do you know what today is?”

Ginny looked up at them, speechless, blank-faced.

“‘Course we know,” said Ron. “‘S not bloody fair that he never made twenty-one.”

George laughed now, but it wasn’t at all reassuring. “Not just that. Not just. Not just that we’ll never be the same age ever again. But he was... He and Angie...” George curled himself up against Ginny again, dissolving once more into tears.

As George began to run out of steam again, Percy’s clipped, worn voice broke in. “Fred and Miss Johnson were going to get married today. She’s just come; I’m afraid she’s rather poorly as well.”

For the first time, George looked up, his face blotchy and wet.

Tentatively, Percy continued, “She said that... that Fred...”

“Fred thought it’d be a great joke,” spat George. “Married on April Fool’s.”

“Hmm,” coughed Percy. With an uncharacteristic smirk in his voice, he continued. “I suppose it was so he’d never forget his anniversary.”

George’s jaw dropped, and Harry felt his own follow suit. Harry was about to kick Percy in the shins—when he heard that choked, vibrating sound again. He turned, expecting to see George consumed once more with tears. Instead, George waslaughing. Red-faced and choking. But laughing.

Ginny, who was still hugging her brother, looked shocked, but quickly began to giggle herself. Contagious, the laughter spread to Ron and to Harry. Even Hermione seemed to be tittering behind her handkerchief.

Again, the cycle worked its way through. Wiping his eyes on Ginny’s jumper—the jumper Harry had taken such pleasure in removing just an hour before—George snorted, “You’re dangerous, you are, Perce!”

“Thank you,” answered Percy, looking rather pleased with himself.

“Come on, George,” Ron said. “Sounds like Angelina could use your help.”

Nodding and giving Ginny a squeeze, George stood and began to walk out the door. “Let’s get the party started, eh?” He began to walk unsteadily toward the door.

Ron stood and took George’s arm over his own shoulder. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk with you about, George,” he said, and they walked past Percy and out the door, Hermione trailing behind them, her handkerchief in shreds.

Harry began to follow, but Percy stopped him. “Actually, Harry, Father said that he received your owl this morning, and that he and our mother would be waiting for you in their bedroom.”

Harry thought at first that Percy must be joking again—but then he remembered that he had in fact contacted the elder Weasleys. And then he remembered why. “Uh. Great. Thanks.”

“Harry?” Ginny was peering at him, arms crossed.

Harry felt as if he jumped back into the frozen pond in the Forest of Dean. Ron was nowhere nearby, and Ginny didn’t look at all in the mood to jump in and pull him out. “Uh, you go ahead, Ginny, help out with George and all. I’ll be right down.”

Her eyes narrowed for a moment, but then widened. “O... kay. See you at the party.” She turned on her heels and flounced down the stairs, clearly Not Happy with Harry.

As he heard them descending the stairs to the ground floor, he followed, turning left on first landing to enter the senior Weasleys’ bedroom for the first time.

Mrs. Weasley was sitting. facing away from Harry with her head against her husband’s chest. They were at the end of their bed—which bore a bedspread that was as extravagantly floral as those in the twins’ old room was plain. Mr. Weasley blinked at Harry. “Ah, yes. Harry. I think we—”

“Did you know that Ginny’s decided not to try out for the Harpies?” Harry blurted; he’d had no idea that the words were going to leave his mouth—they certainly weren’t the words he’d practiced over the past few weeks.

“Uh, no, no, we didn’t,” Mr. Weasley said.

“We oughtn’t to let her, ought we?” The fear that had frozen his mind just moments before had givenway to nervous heat. “She’s _got_ to try out, hasn’t she?”

“Ah,” said Mr. Weasley, and stroked his wife’s head. “Harry, in my experience with women in general—and with Ginny in particular—it isn’t a matter of _letting_. They’re going to do what they want anyway, and if you try to stop them, you’re going to find yourself paying for it for quite a long time to come.”

“But—!”

“Which doesn’t mean that you can’t encourage her to see things from a broader point of view. So long as you’re willing to listen—truly listen.”

“But—!” Harry was about to tell the Weasleys all of the reasons that it would be disastrous for Ginny to give up on her dream at this point, but as he marshaled his arguments, he saw the wisdom in what Mr. Weasley was saying. “Oh.”

Mr. Weasley nodded, but then cocked his head—a very Ginny-like gesture. “Now. Was that the reason that you wanted to speak with us?”

“Uh, no.” Harry took a breath and tried to gather the threads of his much-practiced argument back together in his mind. In his jeans pocket, his hand found the ring case. “I... That is... Ginny... Can...? Will...? May...?” There he ran out of steam.

Mr. Weasley simply smiled blandly at him and continued to stroke his wife’s hair.

After a moment during which Harry found himself feeling more and more incapable of saying anything further, Mrs. Weasley batted at her husband’s hand. “For goodness’ sake, Arthur.” She turned around to face Harry, her eyes red as Harry had not seen them since Fred’s funeral. “Of course you have our blessing to ask her, Harry. I hope you would never question that you are the only boy we’d ever even consider good enough for Ginny.”

“The only boy stubborn enough,” Mr. Weasley said with a mild smirk.

Mrs. Weasley batted at her husband again, this time with more force. “And I hope, Harry, that you know better than to question Ginny’s own views in the matter.”

“Uh, thanks,” Harry answered, once his throat allowed the passage of air.

“Now,” said Mrs. Weasley, standing and clapping her hands together, “we need to finish getting the tables set. All the guests arrived and nothing for them to eat?” With that, she strode past Harry out of the room and down the stairs. Mr. Weasley stared after her for a moment, his mouth open, and then followed her, leaving Harry alone.

“Okay, then,” he said, and went to join the party.

: :

In the coming years, Harry was able to remember that afternoon with crystal clarity: Neville’s secret, Hermione’s panic, Luna’s wild appearance, the sweet lovemaking session beneath the table in the Shack, Ginny’s angry exit, George’s catatonia, the Weasleys... What he could scarcely remember, however, was the party itself. The events that followed it, and those that preceded it, sure. But of the actual party? Scarcely a thing.

One memory that he would retain was of sitting on the Weasleys’s lumpy sofa, watching George and Ginny dance with a kind of wild abandon that Harry could only envy in the moment. Angelina, who had been all but silent all evening, was leaning her elbow lightly on Harry’s shoulder and watching along. “Nice to seem some fun,” she sighed.

“Yeah.” Harry turned toward her, taking in the dark circles on her dark cheeks. “I’m so sorry about Fred, Angelina.”

“Thanks,” she said, and then turned to him. “Can I tell you a joke?”

“Uh, sure.”

“I loved Fred, don’t get me wrong. But George was always the one I fancied.”

“Really? But, I thought...”

She snorted and turned back to watching the manic brother-and-sister dance that was taking up more and more of the sitting room. “Everyone thought. Hell, I guess _I_ thought. I mean, I only started seeing Fred because I thought it was George who’d asked me to the bloody Yule Ball sixth year. Should’ve known. I mean, they were both bloody fools, but George was actually the thoughtful one. In comparison. He’d’ve never just popped out and asked me as soon as the ball was announced like that. Should’ve known. Had to have been Fred.”

“Yeah.” Harry watched her; a smile was beginning to push its way up through her features. “And now?”

“Now?” The smile disappeared. “Doesn’t matter, does it? All either of us can think about when we see each other is Fred. I doubt either of us is going to be looking for company any time soon.”Her low nostrils flared in a snort. “Bloody fools.”

If Harry had answered her, he could never remember. And he’d ask himself more than once whether the fools she was talking about in the end were just the twins.

But that conversation would be one that Harry would happily recall over the years—at Angelina and George’s wedding, at the births of their children, and even when he and Ginny Floo’d over to their flat one night for dinner to find the two of them trading hexes and screaming at each other, blaming each other for the burnt lamb roast.

Love is like the grass pushing up through the cracks in a city street; people can try to pretend that they can conquer it, or that it isn’t there, but it always comes back.

: :

The next thing that Harry could remember in later years was following Ginny out of the full-to-bursting Burrow into the chill of the April night. She led him out toward the paddock, steam flowing back over the silver-washed red of her hair and giving her an even more fearsome appearance.

Harry had nearly to sprint to keep up with her.

Just as he thought that she might be trying to lose him—that she might run into the wood nearby—she grabbed onto one of the worn posts that marked the paddock’s perimeter and turned on him. “I’m furious with you.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Do you know _why_?”

He was about to answer as truthfully as he could—that he thought she hadn’t liked the idea of him telling her what she should and shouldn’t do—but what Mr. Weasley had said earlier flashed through his mind and he thought that, perhaps, this might be one of those times when shutting up and listening was called for. “I’m not sure.”

She stared at him for a moment and then threw her hands up in the air. “ _Neither am I_!” Looking down at Harry’s shoes, she leaned back the fence, her arms crossed. “I mean, I know what you bloody said that set me off. No one likes to make a bloody decision and then be told it was the wrong bloody one. I wanted to bite your bloody head off. And then, of course, it was all okay for Ron to bloody quit.... But the thing is, I know you were bloody _right_.”

“You... You do?”

“Of course I bloody do!” Again she flung her hands up. “I’ve been sneaking out here to fly since I was tall enough to open the latch on the broom shed! I love flying, I _love_ playing Quidditch. It’s _me_. It’s who I _am._ A chance to play for the bloody Harpies is a bloody dream come true.” She was breathing hard, gouts of steam streaming from her nostrils.

“So...?”

“So I know I _should_ try out. I know... I know I bloody _have_ to.” She crossed her arms again, but instead of looking fierce, she looked lost. Her eyes were still downcast and her chin was beginning to tremble. “But I _can’t_. I can’t... I can’t stand the idea of bloody _failing_ , Harry. Of everyone looking at me...I feel as if there’s so bloody little I’ve accomplished on my own—compared to you, say, or Hermione or my git of a brother or... or Neville.”

 _Neville. Neville kissing her..._ “You’ve—”

“Shut up. I know you’re going to say I have, or that you love me no matter what, or something else just as lovely, but Harry, there are three bloody things in my whole life that that I’ve ever been truly proud of. One was the DA last year, and hey! When the DA joined the battle last year, where did I start the night, Harry? Another was Gwenog bloody Jones asking me to try out. And the other was you. You saying, you know...”

“I love you.”

She flashed him a pained grimace of a smile. “Well, yeah. Not that those aren’t wonderful, really bloody wonderful things, but Merlin, I feel like such a whinging, bloody, foolish _girl_ , but if I lost either of those things, I couldn’t stand to lose—”

“Will you marry me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, and stood there blinking.

“Till death do us part?”

“Yes.”

He walked toward her, holding out a hand that, somehow, held the ring box that he’d dropped so often in his kitchen. He opened to box, took out the ring that he’d found in his vault, took her hand and slipped the ring on. “Me too,” he said.

They both looked down at Ginny’s hand, and then up at each other. Her face, which had been pale, was in full bloom. She frowned. “But—”

“You’ll be brilliant. And even if you don’t end up making the team this time no one’ll think any less of you. Definitely not me. I’m not going anywhere.”

She folded herself beneath his chin. “Mph.”

“Also?”

“Mph?”

“Morrison retired at the end of last season, you know that, and Susan just told me that her cousin—whose wife is the Harpies’ team Healer—told her that McKerrigan’s pregnant with her third, and isn’t likely to be flying next season at all. That’s two-thirds of their starting Chaser line. And they carry a full reserve squad. Gwenog might pick up _one_ from another team, but she’s going to want at least one younger player to train up. So you going to tell me that there are two Chasers your age who’re better than you?”

She peered up at him; now her eyes went from rounded to narrowed—though unlike earlier, there was a glint of humor there as well. “Are you saying my making the club won’t be a big deal?”

“Never.”

Smiling, she pushed up on her toes and kissed him, and it felt very right.

Some time later, they were lying on the damp April grass; he had conjured a pair of blankets, one for them both to lie on, and one to throw over themselves. They were still dressed, but the night was cool and evening mist was beginning to close away the world.

“Harry?”

“Mmm.”

“You meant it, right? Getting married.”

“Yes.”

“Good.” She shifted in his arms. “Was that what had you so jumpy today?”

“A bit. Knowing that I was going to talk to your parents. But also...”

Pushing up, she rolled and looked down at him. Her moon-chased hair streamed down either side of his face. “Also?”

“Neville.”

“Neville?”

“He came, because... He wanted to talk. To tell me.”

She looked down—no fear there, no artifice, just curiosity.

“He kissed you.”

“He—?” Her face twisted, but then relaxed. “Oh. Yeah. Twice. I... forgot.”

He grinned. “Lucky me.”

“You want to get lucky, do you, Harry?” Her eyes were dark with promise.

He began to pull her toward him, but she slipped out of his grasp. When he groaned in surprise and disappointment, she laughed and skipped away from him. He sprinted after her, but six older brothers and years of training on a broom had taught her how to stay just out of his reach. They sprinted around the paddock, Ginny just ahead, zigging and zagging, both of them laughing.

 _I get to do this for the rest of my life,_ he thought as they completed the circuit.

Suddenly, she turned and stopped, standing back on the blankets. Harry slammed into her and they tumbled to the ground, still laughing, but kissing now, as if each were trying to erase any separation from the other.

As their embrace passed from snog to something more, Ginny groaned and pulled Harry tight. “April Fool,” she sighed.

 _April Fool,_ he thought, and released himself utterly to the moment, and to folly.

**Author's Note:**

> In the theater, farces are jokingly rated by the number of doors on the set — the more doors to fling open or slam shut, the sillier the farce.
> 
> This is a three-door farce (front door, study door, Floo). ;-)


End file.
